William Greider at
The Nation writes—
After 25 Years of Losing to Wall Street, Left-Wing Democrats Are Winning:
The rebellion of House Democrats that blocked the president’s trade deal with Asia is more than political humiliation for Barack Obama. It is the start of something far bigger—the revival of the Democratic Party as a born-again advocate for working people and economic justice.
The congressional defeat shocked Washington, where the cynical rule is “to get along, you go along.” Even though the Obama-Boehner-McConnell forces are attempting to resuscitate the “fast track” gimmick, the TPP fiasco will be remembered as a fundamental turn in the road.
After 25 years of losing out to Wall Street and corporate interests, the party’s faithful constituency base managed to take down their Democratic president and his sweetheart deal with the big money. The left-liberal policy groups and grassroots activists agitating for change stood their ground against the power elites and, for once, they triumphed.
This may be premature, but I suggest the fast-changing dynamics may be springtime for the New New Democrats on the party’s left. Led by organized labor and AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka, this informal coalition includes environmentalists, social-justice advocates, people of color, defenders of civil liberties, small businesses, and others who are also regularly ignored or injured by the party’s dominant power brokers.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2013—Why the world may change on Sunday (and how it could affect the 2012 election):
The most important election of the year isn’t taking place on Nov 6, 2012. It's taking place this Sunday, in a broken nation thousands of miles away. It's being undertaken by a frightened and frustrated people who have the potential to send the entire world economy into a tailspin.
The mulligan election in Greece will be the second attempt to form a government in as many months. Greece is suffering through an economic crisis the likes of which a modern developed country has never seen. As much as certain Greek political parties dispute the characterization, the world has framed Sunday's election as a referendum on Greece's continued participation in the eurozone.
If any analyst claims to definitively know what the outcome of the election will be or what impact any election outcome will have, they're lying. Uncertainty is the new Zeus, holding dominion over the entire landscape.
Tweet of the Day
If we're going to force Millennials to serve, let's have them do energy retrofits or something useful, not fight their parents' stupid wars.
— @drvox
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show,
Greg Dworkin notes the pope's upcoming visit. Could it be about climate change? Did Chris Christie pardon a gun crime to get 2A creds? Trump's in! Pundits react to Jeb!'s announcement. Today's Hillary roundup, and the strange case of the reporter excluded from her coverage pool. TPA, round 2. Are Tea Partiers persuadable on it? Climate deniers really are the usual suspects.
Gideon gets an explainer on conference reports. Tech vs. constitutional law scares the crap out of us, again. States say they hate Common Core, replace it with Shmommon Shmore, basically.
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